Dark Souls 3 {Dark souls 2 successor [Dark Souls successor (Demon's Souls successor)]} (Bloodborne's something)

[osmosisch]

Atlantic, on 06 May 2016 - 21:10, said:

I've played hundreds of hours of Dark Souls 1, and have played everything from Demon's Souls to Bloodborne, and I have a question for the rest of you.

How are you finding the difficulty of DSIII? I thought it was easier than the others and I beat probably 2/3rds of the bosses on my first try, but obviously I know how to play these games pretty well so my opinion is completely skewed.

It felt about 'right' up until lower irithyll for me where I briefly got extremely frustrated with the pontiff knights -> fire witch sequence, to the point that I had some phantoms take me through it (and all the way through the boss as it turns out, very cool).

[Kyir]

I've played hundreds of hours of Dark Souls 1, and have played everything from Demon's Souls to Bloodborne, and I have a question for the rest of you.

 

How are you finding the difficulty of DSIII? I thought it was easier than the others and I beat probably 2/3rds of the bosses on my first try, but obviously I know how to play these games pretty well so my opinion is completely skewed.

 

I didn't think it was super hard or anything. DS2's DLC was much more difficult to beat I think, except for maybe the Nameless King (builds and difficulty vary somewhat of course). The difficulty curve felt kind of wobbly for some of the bosses though, like Deacons of the Deep were even easier than Iudex Gundyr in both NG and NG+.

[DoomMunky]

[eot]

I've played hundreds of hours of Dark Souls 1, and have played everything from Demon's Souls to Bloodborne, and I have a question for the rest of you.

 

How are you finding the difficulty of DSIII? I thought it was easier than the others and I beat probably 2/3rds of the bosses on my first try, but obviously I know how to play these games pretty well so my opinion is completely skewed.

If it weren't for the fact that I've played so many of these games I think it'd be among the harder ones. There are lots of enemies that do very long combos for a ton of damage, so simply relying on a shield feel less viable to me while at the same time poise doesn't seem to be very useful so you can't just tank the hits either. In terms of bosses though I think it's been on the easier side, but I had a lot of ones that I just barely got on the first try while embered that I could see having taken a few more had I died.

[Deadpan]

I'm only about ten hours in and I'm not sure if easier/harder is the right metric, but Dark Souls 3 definitely has a different vibe. It feels like from Dark Souls 1 to 2 to Scholar of the First Sin the games shifted away from duelling individual enemies to controlling groups of them, and that inevitably makes fights much messier because there's a much bigger delta of randomness in what moves enemies do and how well they path towards you when you are dealing with entire hordes. Now Dark Souls 3 throws in even more tiny but agile enemies and turns off Poise, suddenly fights can feel very snowball-y.

 

It feels like a lot of enemies in the game can be easily overwhelmed if you bumrush them with a big enough sword or big enough group of coop buddies and just lay into them without ever giving them a chance to move. But if you don't manage to kill them immediately then suddenly they are somersaulting all over the place giving you hell with their fast sweeping attacks. So it seems to me at least, like the difference between going through certain areas alone or having an extra person around has gone wayyyyyyyyy up thanks to these changes. A lot of these crowded fights seem completely overwhelming on your own but become almost trivial if you have company.

 

The Poise changes probably also add to the frustration of invasions. Previously you could somewhat negate the fleet-footed antics of pvp tryhards with big ass armor, but now they can always stun-lock you into oblivion.

[thainatos]

That Vordt illustration. So good.

 

Edit: see previous page.

 

As far as difficulty goes, seems like there are parts you can walk through and parts where you need to Git Gud. Never hit a wall like Pontiff Sulyvahn though, except when I fought Ornstein and Smough. Eff that guy.

[osmosisch]

Yeah even epicnamebro took pretty long on that fight. I summoned for it, making it pretty doable.

[Bjorn]

Pontiff Sulyvahn is such a pushover though, I mean look at this guy just waltz in there and wreck him:

[prettyunsmart]

Pontiff Sulyvahn is such a pushover though, I mean look at this guy just waltz in there and wreck him:

 

Jeez. Way to cave to noobs and make the game easier, From Software. 

 

/s

[thainatos]

I'm playing a sorcerer, and I have zero melee weapons worth a damn. I could maybe Deep Soul and Affinity him, but dodging and keeping away from his clone is TOUGH.

[Bjorn]

Jeez. Way to cave to noobs and make the game easier, From Software. 

 

/s

 

I really love the planning and execution that goes into the guys who try and one shot bosses. 

 

 

I'm playing a sorcerer, and I have zero melee weapons worth a damn. I could maybe Deep Soul and Affinity him, but dodging and keeping away from his clone is TOUGH.

 

The Pontiff actually reminded me most of the abyss cavern boss in DS2 (the angel looking thing), which also featured a clone/split late in the fight.  I ended up handling the Pontiff in much the same way as that boss, which was just to go hyper aggressive as soon as the clone appeared and finish the fight as quickly as possible, as trying to be all defensive and dodgy would just get me killed with attacks potentially coming from two directions.  But I never run a sorcerer, so I'm not sure how feasible that is, or what good intel weapons are available in 3 yet.

[Kyir]

You can do a lot of damage to the clone as it's coming out. You might be able to pop it just during that span of time?

[thainatos]

A record of my failed attempts: 

 

Dark Blade is useful, but I can't get the timing right. I noticed that it one-shotted the clone ONCE, but every other time it took two. I was getting a little upset there at the end, so I cut it short.

[eot]

I posted this earlier I think, but since Pontiff is the current theme:

[thainatos]

That's ridiculous. Part of me thinks I should just put some levels into HP and then sword and board it, but then there's the Nick Bredon part of me that says that's what a baby would do.

[Kyir]

You might also want to try rolling less when you're just backing up. He can close the space fast no matter what, and there were a few times in there where he did and you were out of stamina because of the rolling you did when it wasn't necessary. He's hard, but I'm sure you can do it!

[thainatos]

Tried streaming a second attempt but was unsuccessful. I've gotta say: Nick really makes this drunk streaming thing look easy.

[Kyir]

I have now gotten 100% of achievements in this game, which are surprisingly comprehensive in their scope. Doing so requires beating the game on NG, NG+, and NG++, doing PvE, co-op, and both kinds of PvP. It took me about 110 hours to do so, though some portion of that was just me messing around. This is the first From Software game (and any game of the Souls genre I suppose) that inspired me to come back and beat it more than once. Usually they just leave me feeling sort of exhausted about everything, but Dark Souls 3 left me feeling energized enough  to press on. The visuals and music felt might higher on the "haunting" scale compared to how plainly horrific the stuff in Bloodborne was or the sheer sense of decay in Dark Souls 2, and several of the bosses stand above all the others in these games I would say. I don't feel conflicted at all in saying that this is my favorite of the series in pretty much every aspect. I'm sort of wary saying it, but I really hope we get a Dark Souls 4.

 

If anyone wants help beating anything I would be more than happy to jump in at this point, but I imagine it would feel a bit trivial doing so. 

 

P.S. The summoned PvP in this game is actually really good since most people abide by the no-healing 1v1 rules. It's tense but not overly so, and I generally had some really good fights. https://www.twitch.tv/kyir/v/67284097 was probably my favorite.

[thainatos]

I DID IT! FUCK THAT GUY!

 

 

Losing my cool starts around 26:00. Victory lap starts around 28:00.

[Bjorn]

Yah!

[Bjorn]

I had the most perfect co-op session last night.  I loaded up my pyromancer, who I made weeks ago and hadn't really done much with.  Wanted to rush the catacombs to get some pyro stuff.  Got to the bonfire where you meet Anri for the first time, and as soon as I lit it, got invaded.  Didn't feel like dealing with an invader, so I summoned help, some dude named "I help anytime" (the thing the giant archer buddy says).

He was one of those coop lords, just helps people though entire areas.  We murderized the invader and then he just led me on a pretty efficient path through the area.  Killed the Black Knight, got the important stuff around the crab swamp, killed the two npcs guarding the entrance to the poison swamp, went through the poison swamp getting some important things, turned off two of the tower fires.  

And then we headed up to the Wolf of Farron bonfire.  Lit it, and went up the elevator to take on the Stray Demon.  This is by far the longest coop session I've done in Ds3 at this point.  We get to the Stray Demon, my buddy points, and we both rush forward.  Before we can do anything, the Demon picks up my new buddy and tosses him off the bridge.  

It couldn't have been a better ending to a coop session just because it was so unexpected.

[eot]

Real life got in the way a few weeks ago, and after that I completely fell off the game. The trend of decreasing interest with every game sadly continues :/ I did make myself play some more in the hope of getting back into it though and I beat Nameless King. It's not going to be among my favourite Souls bosses, but I think it manages just the right level of challenge while not resorting to any BS. The only issue I had was the camera in the first phase, but that part is easy enough that it doesn't pose a huge problem.

[Problem Machine]

For people who enjoy let's play type stuff, I just started streaming my first (blind) run of Dark Souls 3 on twitch and uploading the streams to youtube. Streams are daily 1-3pm pst through this week, we'll see after that based on experimental data (suspecting I might get more viewers streaming at night than during the afternoon). Check it out if that sounds like the kinda thing you might be into. Thanks!

[Dewar]

Ooh, that sounds nifty, I'm especially happy about having the streams up on YouTube. Watching Twitch VoD is always a pain.

[Kyir]

Always up for watching blind playthroughs. I'll do my best to not backseat.